Charging Plugs, etc.

[goaliepride]

Hi all,

I would like to know which plug to install for my home garage (rental without dryer outlet) and was hoping for some advice on that front. It's a bit of a touchy situation because I'm requesting that my landlady put it in (fingers crossed) so I want to maximize it's usefulness for potential tenants. I'm also going to buy a house in the coming 2-4 years, and don't want to waste resources.

EVSE upgrade for the 6.6/6.0 MY2013 EVSE: NEMA L6-30R
Quick220 has the: 6-20 plug. From what I understand be adapter'ized to 6-30 using a "NEMA L6-20 to L6-30 Twist-Lock Adapter" from EVSEadapters.com

Level two dedicated chargers seem to use: 6-50

So, questions:
1) Is there a good reason that EVSEupgrade & most permanent home l2 EVSEs(6.0+) differ in plugs? (6-30 vs. 6-50)

2) Does anyone with experience using the EVSEupgrade as their permanent solution mind chiming in on their advice with doing so? Same goes for people who've switched to using a stationary L2 EVSE.

3) Any advice for maximizing the landlady's utility in the situation? By this I mean if I need to ask her to install a useful plug (power tools?), then buy an adapter for my purposes, so be it. Water is not run to the garage, and washing machine outlets are in the main house (this is for the garage).

Thanks!

 

[planet4ever]

First, a quick sort out of terminology. Charging ports are the connections at the front of your car that you plug in to. A charger is built in to the car for 120v and 208-240v charging. What you are asking about are EVSEs and the plugs/receptacles between the EVSE and the wall.

Since it sounds like you may be moving soon, and want to leave something tidy behind you, you are probably right to think about having some sort of outlet receptacle mounted on the wall in your garage. That isn't true for everyone. Many EVSEs are hard-wired, connected to the wall wiring with wire nuts inside a metal or plastic box.

The basic correct answer to what outlet receptacle you should use is that it should match the amperage of the circuit breakers at the other end of the wire. So if you have 20A breakers you should have a something-20 receptacle. (By the way, 240v has two "hot" wires, so has two breakers for each circuit.) The same thing applies to 30A breakers. But if you have 40A breakers, there are no commonly used 40A receptacles, and 6-50s are commonly substituted.

So, what size breakers should you use? There are two important rules.

• Never use breakers that might allow the wiring to overheat. Your electrician will know the minimum size wiring to use for given breakers. Some people use heavier wire, and that is OK, but it increases the installation cost, and is probably not worthwhile in a rental.
• For continuous duty (like charging a car) the amperage used by the load should not be more than 80% of the breaker rating. Turned around the other way, you need to have breakers that are at least 25% higher in capacity than the load. (I know, that doesn't sound right at first glance, but it is.)

Now let's look at the load. Your 2013 SV can pull up to nearly 30A, but may be limited by the EVSE. Many EVSEs are 30A, and if you got one of those your circuit breaker would have to be at least 30A times 1.25, or 37.5A. The next higher size available is 40A, so you would use a 6-50 receptacle.

But just because your car can pull 30A doesn't mean you have to give it that much when charging at home. 2011 and 2012 LEAFs were limited to 16A, and there was never any problem charging overnight with them. In fact charging rarely took more than 6 hours. Do you really need to be able to charge fully in 4 hours or less at home? The faster charger in the car is great if you are sitting at a public charging station waiting to get enough juice to make it home. For most people, 15A to 20A charging at 240v is just fine at home.

So that leads us to Quick220, EVSE Upgrade, and lower amperage product EVSEs like the Clipper Creek LCS-25. With rare exceptions the Quick220 should not be used for more than 15A to 16A. The LCS-25 runs at 20A, and the latest EVSE Upgrade can be dialed for anything between 6A and 20A. So a 20A receptacle is right for the Quick220, and a 30A receptacle for the LCS-25. (They call it a 25 because it can be run with 25A breakers, but those are rare, and there are no 25A receptacles that I know of. Note that the LCS-25 ships without a plug, on the assumption that it will be hard-wired, but you can add a plug.) The old upgrades were limited to 16A and shipped with 20A plugs, but since the new ones can go up to 20A they are shipped with 30A plugs.

Ray

 

[cwerdna]

http://www.mynissanleaf.com/viewtopic.php?p=262630#p262630" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false; from planet4ever may help the OP.

 

[RonDawg]

Note that the LCS-25 ships without a plug, on the assumption that it will be hard-wired, but you can add a plug.

Actually, for an additional $50 Clipper Creek now offers a plug-in version of the LCS-25, called the LCS-25P. Your choice of NEMA 14-30:

http://stores.homestead.com/ClipperCreekInc/-strse-26/Charging-Stataion--fdsh--LCS-dsh-25P%2C/Detail.bok" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

Or L6-30:

http://stores.homestead.com/ClipperCreekInc/-strse-27/Charging-Station--fdsh--LCS-dsh-25P%2C/Detail.bok" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

Note that you can put a plug of your choice on a regular LCS-25, but I'm unsure if that might void the warranty.

 

[goaliepride]

Thanks, I've corrected the terminology used in the initial post. The "needing" a 30A point is valid and interesting, for sure. I think I'd prefer 30A simply because of three situations. 1) I get home with little charge, hang out for an hour, then go out again. 2) I want to time the charging to that it occurs at "super off-peak" hours to save money. 3) I get a new car in the future with a bigger battery where halving the time of a charge would be seen as required (so, couldn't charge it overnight on 16A).

5A = L1 EVSE : Roughly 5miles of range recovered per charge hour
16A = NEMA 6-20 : Roughly 15miles of range recovered per charge hour
20A = NEMA 6-30 : Roughly 20miles of range recovered per charge hour
30A = NEMA 6-50 : Roughly 30miles of range recovered per charge hour

Now let's look at the load. Your 2013 SV can pull up to nearly 30A, but may be limited by the EVSE. Many EVSEs are 30A, and if you got one of those your circuit breaker would have to be at least 30A times 1.25, or 37.5A. The next higher size available is 40A, so you would use a 6-50 receptacle.

So yeah, ok, I suppose the real choice that needs to be made is how fast of an EVSE I want to buy given what the landlady is willing to do. Is it possible to buy a 30amp EVSE and plug it in via conversion plug to a L6-20? I feel like if I can do that, that sounds like the best option for buying an EVSE would be a high capacity one where I can then use it on whatever I can get her to install plug-wise.

Thanks very much for the thorough explanation. I think it's "clicking" now, and I certainly didn't notice the <30amps of the EVSEupgrade before.

 

[gbarry42]

Thanks, I've corrected the terminology used in the initial post.

Note that you can change the title in the initial post, and it will change it for the thread.

 

[davewill]

... So yeah, ok, I suppose the real choice that needs to be made is how fast of an EVSE I want to buy given what the landlady is willing to do. Is it possible to buy a 30amp EVSE and plug it in via conversion plug to a L6-20? I feel like if I can do that, that sounds like the best option for buying an EVSE would be a high capacity one where I can then use it on whatever I can get her to install plug-wise. ...

No, you don't want to do that because the 30a EVSE will draw more than the 20a circuit of the L6-20 can supply. If you put in a 20a circuit, then you want to draw no more than 16a.

There's no right choice for future use for some unknown purpose. Just decide what kind of EVSE you want to buy, then ask for the correct size circuit to support it. For a 30a EVSE, you'll need a 40a circuit. You'll want either a 6-50, or a 14-50 receptacle on the wall. (the 14-50 is used for more appliances, but requires 4 wires instead of 3 for the 6-50).

If you go with the EVSE upgrade or LCS-25, you'll want a 30a circuit, and you'll put an L6-30 (3 wire) or a 14-30 (4 wire) on the wall.

Don't worry so much about which receptacle type is used. It can be changed pretty easily in the future if necessary.

 

[Nubo]

Note this is all dependent on the situation in the existing electrical panel (i.e., room for additional circuit breakers). Also, load calculations may affect whether additional circuit can be added, and its maximum amperage. This is over and above whatever you think your landlady might want to use the circuit for. Basically, the more amps, the more potential uses. But frankly if she hasn't already identified a need till now, not sure she's gonna' care much one way or the other . Nice that she'd let you get a circuit run though.

 

[planet4ever]

I think I'd prefer 30A simply because of three situations. 1) I get home with little charge, hang out for an hour, then go out again. 2) I want to time the charging to that it occurs at "super off-peak" hours to save money. 3) I get a new car in the future with a bigger battery where halving the time of a charge would be seen as required (so, couldn't charge it overnight on 16A).

Point 1 is valid, as is point 2 if you have a very short super off-peak. Point 3 not so much so. I explored this in some detail recently. See this post.

5A = L1 EVSE : Roughly 5miles of range recovered per charge hour
16A = NEMA 6-20 : Roughly 15miles of range recovered per charge hour
20A = NEMA 6-30 : Roughly 20miles of range recovered per charge hour
30A = NEMA 6-50 : Roughly 30miles of range recovered per charge hour

Your numbers are too optimistic unless you do all your driving at 30 mph on city streets with timed lights. L1 is actually 12A, but at 120v, so half the watts of 12A at 240v. The hooker is that 120v charging is less efficient, so the net into the battery is just over 1kW. You are right that range recovered is about 1/3 that of 16A 240v charging. But for the average driver I would say milage gained per charging hour is approximately:
L1: 4 miles
16A: 12 miles
20A: 16 miles
30A: 22 miles

Ray

 

[goaliepride]

Ray

you're the man Ray, thanks. Sincerely, thank you. That's very cool of you to patiently explain this to me.

 

[notlad]

Is it safe to get a 40amp installed with a 6-50r and use the new LCS-25P, NEMA 6-50? I'm just wondering if the 40amp circuit is safe with a device that uses only 20amps?

 

[fooljoe]

Is it safe to get a 40amp installed with a 6-50r and use the new LCS-25P, NEMA 6-50? I'm just wondering if the 40amp circuit is safe with a device that uses only 20amps?

That's perfectly fine. You can always use a device that pulls less than the circuit's rating (and an EVSE shouldn't allow more than 80% of the circuit rating), just not the other way around.

 

[planet4ever]

I'm just wondering if the 40amp circuit is safe with a device that uses only 20amps?

Is it safe to plug a 1 amp floor lamp or a 0.05 amp night light into an ordinary 15 amp house outlet? I suspect you've been doing those things for years without worrying about it. This is the same thing.

Ray

 

[RonDawg]

Since your circuit is only 40 amp, why not just get an LCS-25P with either a L6-30 or 14-30 plug? It is available with those style plugs.

 

[notlad]

Thanks for the help! I'm getting a circuit installed today and I want one that can handle a variety of EVSEs. I'm currently deciding between the LCS-25p and the Siemens VC30BLKB 30-Amp Bottom Fed VersiCharge. I was guessing that a 40amp circuit with a NEMA 6-50 would work for either.

 

[fooljoe]

Thanks for the help! I'm getting a circuit installed today and I want one that can handle a variety of EVSEs. I'm currently deciding between the LCS-25p and the Siemens VC30BLKB 30-Amp Bottom Fed VersiCharge. I was guessing that a 40amp circuit with a NEMA 6-50 would work for either.

If you ever upgrade to a Rav4-EV or a Tesla, you'll wish you installed a 50 amp circuit instead.